JOAN’S WEEKEND BLOG – MARCH 9/10, 2013 – THE THERAPY SESSION

As many of you are aware, I decided to seek therapy to help with THE major issue that has been the basis of my emotional pain since my husband’s Alzheimer symptoms first took hold – How do I “get over”, “live with”, “adjust to”, or “accept” the fact that Alzheimer’s Disease took my husband? My husband, although still alive, is not the man I fell in love with and married 43 years ago. Alzheimer’s Disease has changed his personality, his abilities, his cognition, his responses to me, his entire being. It replaced him with a strange child who requires constant physical and mental care. I miss my husband. After years of fighting, I understand that he is not coming back, but how do I deal with the loss?

Therapy is private. I intend to keep a lot of it private. I am sharing my first therapy experience with you because I think what I learned in that one session may help those of you who are struggling as I am.

I went in with the decision already made on my own, that I needed to mourn the loss of my husband, move out of the Alzheimer world as much as possible, make new non-Alzheimer friends, and engage in non-Alzheimer activities. It is the HOW to do this that sent me to the therapist.

Through my tears, I told the therapist that my husband was gone, and asked her how I am supposed to grieve a living person. That is the crux of the problem for Alzheimer Spouses. We have discussed it often on our Message Boards and in my blogs. If our spouses had died in the physical sense, we would mourn them for however long it took, in our own way, and eventually move on to a different life without them. But our spouses are alive. How do you mourn a living person and move on in your life when your “marriage love” is gone, but your emotional connection of decades still exists? To me, it is an impossible situation.

Although I SAY that Sid is not who he was and does not respond to me the way he used to; although I SAY he has the mental and emotional maturity of a two year old; although I SAY he has lost judgment, reasoning, and ability for abstract thought, it is quite a jolt to hear it from someone else. As I was describing incidents with Sid involving his concrete language, his confusion, and his responses to me, she said point blank – “He is gone.” That statement was as much of a shock to me as if I had gotten a late night phone call that he had died in a car accident. It seems impossible that I could be shocked by something I had been saying for months, but I was.

I told her that Sid tells me every day how much he loves me, but in my heart, I know he does not love me the way he used to. He cannot, because that love would be based upon our history together. He has forgotten our history together. He loves me because I take care of him. Then another shock. She agreed with me. She told me that he is incapable of loving me as he used to, and yes, I was correct. He loves me because I take care of him.

Why should these two statements by the therapist hurt me so much, considering they are exactly what I have been saying? Validation of my observations and emotions usually pleases me. This one shattered me.

I composed myself and asked again HOW do I grieve and get through this? She talked about ways in which spouses grieve – recalling the good memories; being thankful for all the great years we had together. It takes time and it hurts, but eventually, you come to some sort of peace with it.

I can understand that, but grieving in that way requires the emotional divorce. It requires that we, as Alzheimer Spouses, accept that our spouses are gone; that we DO NOT have the emotional connection to the person for whom we are caring as we did for our spouses. We care for their bodies, grieve the person that is no longer, and move on with our lives as best as we can.

That is one big undertaking. I supposed my first order of business is to stop running from the hurt. I guess I need to let the memories come, cry for them, and be thankful them. I’m willing to try and see if it helps, because pushing the memories away behind the wall is not working for me anymore.

As I said, I am sharing this with you who are struggling with the same issue as I am. Maybe you disagree with all of it. Maybe you have tried it and failed. Maybe you have tried it and succeeded. Please share your experiences with us on the Message Boards, as we can all benefit from each other’s opinions and experiences.

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The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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The Wall is Crumbling - February 11, 2013 - The wall that I have built to protect my pain is crumbling

The First Date and Alzheimer Grief - February 16, 2013 - My husband forgets one of the milestones of our life together.

In Our Shoes - February 25, 2013 - No one else could possibly understand our plight but another Alzheimer Spouse

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